Singer Yoo Yeol (65) is sharing how he fought his way back to health after a devastating battle with lung disease that once had doctors preparing his family for the worst.
The veteran artist appears on MBN’s "Day & Night" on January 24, opening up about seven years of illness and a comeback that felt nothing short of miraculous.
Yoo was hospitalized with pneumonia in 2019, then diagnosed with pleuroparenchymal fibroelastosis―an idiopathic form of pulmonary fibrosis. The rare condition carries a high mortality rate and, at best, can be slowed with medication. Severe side effects left him emaciated, dropping to around 40 kilograms, and doctors urged his family to consider life support―effectively a do-not-resuscitate conversation that he describes as a “death sentence.”
Even in that free fall, Yoo kept searching. Another hospital confirmed he was a candidate for a lung transplant, and he fought to regain enough strength and weight to qualify. Twice, surgeries were called off at the last minute. His condition worsened; he experienced delirium and hovered in critical shape.
“I was at the point where I truly had to write a will,” he says. In July 2024, he finally underwent a lung transplant and, after a long recovery, made his way back to everyday life.
On the broadcast, Yoo reads the will he wrote to his wife and child, quieting the studio. He also shares a letter from his son pleading, “Please save my dad,” moving host Kim Joo-ha and fellow MCs Moon Se-yoon and ZO ZAZZ to tears.
Yoo reveals that his mother passed away shortly after he was admitted to the hospital―and on the day of her funeral, he himself slipped into unconsciousness. It was, he says, a stretch of unrelenting hardship.
Still, he found grace in unlikely places. “You find out who your friends really are when hardship hits,” he reflects, recounting how singer Jung Hoon-hee anonymously sent significant financial support. “I only learned it was her later. It meant the world. On the phone she said, ‘Yeol, when you recover, let’s do a duet.’ I’ll never forget that.”
During his illness, Yoo deepened his faith and pursued theology, graduating from Calvin University’s Graduate School of Theology in 2023. Recently, he’s cautiously resumed work, including narrating documentary projects.
(SBS Entertainment News | Kang Kyung-youn)